Robert Fludd’s The Mirror of the Whole of Nature and the Image of Art

2016 Symposium

Robert Fludd was a seventeenth-century physician and philosopher who wrote an illustrated manifesto that addressed his philosophical theories of the universe, entitled The Technical, Physical and Metaphysical History of the Microcosm and Macrocosm of 1617-1626. Included in the text is a myriad of intricately-detailed engravings, including the engraving entitled The Mirror of the Whole of … [Read more…]

Fruit bats play a large role in the forest ecosystems they inhabit as major pollinators and seed-dispersal agents (Hahn et al. 2014). Unfortunately, these large bat populations are under major pressures through hunting and habitat loss (Stone 2007). Fruit bat populations in Myanmar have not been extensively studied or highly monitored in the past, although … [Read more…]

The Great Patriotic War (WWII) was one of the deadliest conflicts in Soviet history. For Russians, casualties amounted to approximately 26 million, half of which were civilians. The war was such a traumatic point in history that it still remains in the minds of the Russians today. In the West, we learn about the Second … [Read more…]

Ion trapping is useful for mass spectrometry, atomic clocks, and quantum computing. This poster discusses the investigation and characterization of a mechanical analogue to the Paul-type RF-electricquadrupole ion trap: a ball on a spinning saddle. Both systems require a frequency of oscillation greater than a certain critical frequency in order to act as a trap. … [Read more…]

Parsifal, Wagner’s final musik-drama, is an epic tale about the Knights of the Holy Grail and the salvation of man from his own corruption. The particular man, Amfortas, owes his corruption to the feminine wiles of Kundry, the only named female character who appears onstage in the entire four-and-a-half-hourlong work. However, Amfortas is not the … [Read more…]

Opera’s biggest stars are and always have been women. The headliners and the titles are most often female, like Renee Fleming and Carmen. Carmen, Bizet’s classic work about a strong-willed Gypsy woman who refuses to bow to male control, is one of the most accessible standards of the operatic repertoire, which makes it an ideal … [Read more…]

Due to its elevated temperatures and atmospheric CO2 concentrations, the Pliocene warm period (PWP) (5.3-2.6 million years ago) is a common analog for a future, warmer world. The El NiñoSouthern Oscillation (ENSO) is an ocean and atmosphere phenomenon punctuated by El Niño and La Niña events, changes in the distribution of warm water across the … [Read more…]

Kabuki theatre is an art form that seems otherworldly to Western theatre goers. From the elaborate costumes and makeup to the way the actors speak, nothing about Kabuki falls into the realm of realism that Westerners are accustomed to seeing at the theater. Kabuki theatre is actor focused. It is not unheard of for leading … [Read more…]

The Mural La Plena by Rafael Tufiño is an extraordinary artistic work that truly exemplifies Puerto Rican culture. La Plena documents a historical musical form of Puerto Rico; it also documents the history of the island and brings awareness to Puerto Rican history and folk music. The painting and a related documentary were commissioned during … [Read more…]

Robert Fludd was a seventeenth-century physician and philosopher who wrote an illustrated manifesto that addressed his philosophical theories of the universe, entitled The Technical, Physical and Metaphysical History of the Microcosm and Macrocosm of 1617-1626. Included in the text is a myriad of intricately-detailed engravings, including the engraving entitled The Mirror of the Whole of … [Read more…]

The tritrophic community of the Neotropical fly Blepharoneura, its lethal parasitic wasp, and its cucurbit host plant shows surprisingly high levels of niche overlap and diversity. This diversity is made visible through work in the field and the lab, providing this study with species information on all three members of the community. Over thirty species … [Read more…]

Cholesterol, a lipid biosynthesized within cells, is known to have a profound effect on cell membranes. An essential structural component, cholesterol not only increases bilayer stiffness and thickness, but plays a key role in facilitating membrane organization. There is growing evidence that lipids and proteins self-organize in order to bring about subcompartmentalization as a means … [Read more…]

Film adaptations should be judged on the basis of how well they uphold the “original” piece. Robert Altman’s film Short Cuts, an adaptation of several of Raymond Carver’s texts, is no exception. Numerous critics have debated whether the film is truly worthy of Carver’s legacy. The film’s soundscape is among the elements contested. Critics concerned … [Read more…]

This research compiles beach profiling data obtained yearly between 1999 and 2016 and indicates annual changes in the beach morphology of three beaches on San Salvador Island, Bahamas. The profiles provide a visualization of the effect of different hydrodynamic regimes present on each beach. The beaches surveyed are each affected differently by wind- and wave-energy … [Read more…]

The trilobites of the genus Ceraurus have always been relatively uncommon. I chose to conduct research on this particular trilobite genus as I feel that the genus has been somewhat overlooked and I believe there is still a lot which we do not know about its members. In this research, I looked at the morphology … [Read more…]

Although data are available globally for the study of sea temperature and waves, the resolution of the data limits the conclusions that can be drawn in small areas and small slices of time. This research presents a novel device designed and constructed for measuring surface sea temperature and wave energy that costs significantly less than … [Read more…]

Rising seawater temperatures have increased rates of coral mortality due to bleaching. Bleaching is a result of the loss of Symbiodinium, a photosynthetic protist, from coral tissues. Both temperature and light play important roles in the diversity of coral symbionts, and different Symbiodinium clades (A-I) provide different physiological benefits to their coral hosts. This symbiosis … [Read more…]

On February 28th of 2014, Russian soldiers wrested control of a number of key road junctions between Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula, as well as the airport in Sevastopol. Over the next several weeks, Russian military units gained control over the entire peninsula in a relatively bloodless seizure of Ukrainian territory. The spontaneity of the … [Read more…]

Philosophers reside in their comfortable armchairs atop the Ivory Tower of academia speculating about the nature of the world, seldom venturing downstairs to see how their theories work in the real world. As such, a majority of the work in philosophy is produced at a desk where the authors are removed from the situations they … [Read more…]

Lionfish, native to the Indo-Pacific Ocean, threaten reef systems throughout the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean by eating native fish of economic and ecological importance. In Belize, lionfish management depends primarily on nonprofit conservation organizations and incentivizing fishermen and divers to harvest the lionfish. Lionfish products, including meat sold by restaurants and jewelry made from … [Read more…]

In the United States, the nonprofit sector has grown steadily to reach 1.44 million registered organizations as of 2014, which contributes an annual average of 5.4% of gross domestic product in the United States. The sector is incredibly diverse and dynamic, yet studies measuring the impacts of their programs are scarce past financial data, or … [Read more…]

The effect of global climate change on the performance of living organisms has not yet been thoroughly researched. The purpose of this study was to understand how these temperature variations would affect organismal behavior. After discovering how important it is for fish to live in specific water temperatures due to oxygen levels, these organisms became … [Read more…]

Trace elements, including the rare earth elements (REEs) and Y, constitute low concentrations (<0.1%) of bulk rock compositions. These elements do not control growth, but instead record metamorphic events through zonation patterns in garnets. For example, heavy rare earth elements (HREEs) tend to be concentrated in the core of the garnet because they are preferentially … [Read more…]

We conducted a randomized, controlled preliminary trial of a dissonance-based eating disorder prevention program in a community sample of women with clinical and subclinical symptoms. Verbal, written, and behavioral exercises designed to dissuade objectification and maladaptive social comparison were added to the traditional content of the Body Project prevention program. Program efficacy was compared to … [Read more…]

Misdiagnosis is the leading cause for malpractice in healthcare and can result in improper treatments, disabilities, or death. Misdiagnoses have become increasingly more expensive as healthcare reimbursement shifts to a quality-based system. Endocarditis, an infection of the inner lining of the heart, is one of the more prevalent misdiagnosed diseases, and results in severe health … [Read more…]

Carbon dioxide capture is of great importance for chemical research due to carbon dioxide’s potential as a greenhouse gas. Ionic liquids have been suggested as possible alternatives to traditional aqueous amine solutions currently used for capture because ionic liquids can absorb more CO2 per mole and because lower desorption energies can be achieved. Previous computational … [Read more…]

The method in which electricity is produced in industrial-sized, centralized facilities and distributed to users through power grids has been the main electricity-generation method in the US for a long time. Yet, given that a lot of the grids are currently out-of-date and expensive to be upgraded, as well as the fact that the solar … [Read more…]

The objective of this study is to identify misdiagnosis of pulmonary embolism and other factors that might be related to misdiagnosis using a data-driven approach. We used the HCUP database of inpatient and emergency patient information in New York and California between 2005 and 2012. There were 64,382,957 observations in New York (20,926,038 inpatient and … [Read more…]

Nitrates and other farm chemicals are transported from farmers’ fields into nearby streams. Nitrate levels have grown so high that they are likely the cause of hypoxia (lack of oxygen) in the Gulf of Mexico. Although methods to control the spread of farm chemicals have been implemented, it can be hard to determine if these … [Read more…]

“Art instills harmony and order into the soul, not confusion and disorder”- N.V. Gogol. Although Gogol made this statement, his work Dead Souls is disorderly and leaves the reader wondering ’What did I just read?’ It is because of this question that many scholars and critics have interpreted the work in a variety of ways. … [Read more…]

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is second only to Alzheimer’s disease as the most common neurodegenerative disease in humans, and individuals with PD are at a higher risk of developing melanoma. African Americans have a lower incidence of PD and present with symptoms at an older age than Caucasians, suggesting a relationship between skin pigmentation and PD. … [Read more…]

I will be examining Safety Last, an American silent film by the distinguished director Harold Lloyd. Lloyd was one of the most significant filmmakers of the silent film era. He was known for creating dangerous stunts in the majority of his popular films. His cinematic choices in a few scenes exemplified larger issues about the … [Read more…]

In a society and time that was bound by privileges of literacy education, the knowledge, time, and materials necessary to create marginalia were accessible to a narrow population of annotators. What can be gleaned from marginalia is a sense of annotators from an individual level to a composite scope informed by the larger context of … [Read more…]

Music is an integral piece of a society, and in order to fully understand the local community as a foreigner, it’s important to look into the cultures and customs involving music. The transformation of the Middle East is best understood through the music which has accompanied change. The past hundred years have been particularly telling, … [Read more…]

Pulmonary hypertension is a potentially fatal disease that has been shown to be caused by an imbalance of reactive oxygen species and antioxidant defenses, causing vasoconstriction and abnormalities in the vascular wall. In many studies, the use of antioxidants as a therapeutic treatment has been capable of attenuating the oxidative stress that causes the progression … [Read more…]

Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) is estimated to cause approximately 2,000 deaths in the USA every year (Massey et al., 2014) and is the major cause of death in individuals with refractory epilepsy. Since most SUDEP cases have been found in bed, there has been a great deal of effort trying to investigate the … [Read more…]

Many people are familiar with and appreciate plants and animals, which are ecologically important as primary producers and consumers, respectively. Fungi are perhaps less appreciated, but no less important ecologically, serving a major role, along with bacteria, as decomposers essential to the cycling of nutrients on which both plants and animals depend. To quantify plants, … [Read more…]

The ornate box turtle (Terrapene ornata ornata) was once widespread and common in eastern Iowa, but the conversion of native sand prairies to agriculture has dramatically reduced the range of the nowthreatened species. In the summer of 2015, this research contributed to a 23-year study on ornate box turtles by investigating the growth, movements, and … [Read more…]

Blepharoneura is a genus of cryptic, Neotropical, South American fruit flies in the Tephritidae family involved in amazingly specific interactions with their parasitic wasps (Condon et al. 2008). Most of the species of parasitic wasps can kill only one species of fly. If the wasps attack the “wrong” fly, the wasp dies (Condon et al. … [Read more…]

Fish employ multiple techniques in order to capture and consume their prey, including using suction. This is done by the fish rapidly expanding their buccal cavity (the inside of the fish’s mouth, from the tip of the jaw to the back of the throat), which creates a volume drop inside their mouth that causes water … [Read more…]

The purpose of this research was to analyze cellular growth and glucose metabolism of yeast in various environments as controlled by the TOR2 pathway. TOR2 is a central metabolic regulator involved in cellular growth and proliferation. TOR2 regulates protein synthesis by regulating translation and mediating early G1 progression of the cell cycle. TOR2 is involved … [Read more…]

Mesoporous thin films have a number of possible applications, most notably arising from their insulating properties for use in microelectronics. In this work, we created thin films using a bench-top solutionprocess method. In order to assess the viability of these alumina films for porous material-use porogens, pore originators made from organic materials were introduced into … [Read more…]

The three-body problem is a classic problem in physics and applied mathematics and concerns determining the motions of three bodies who each mutually influence the motion of the other two through the force of gravity. As simple as the problem may initially appear to be, with only 3 bodies and 1 type of force, Newton, … [Read more…]

The mechanisms by which microbes affect plant health remain unclear. Some microbes promote plant growth by stimulating root proliferation. Increases in the number of roots foster plant growth by taking up more nutrients and water. Root growth depends on two processes: cell expansion and cell production. Physical characteristics of cell walls, such as elasticity, affect … [Read more…]

BRAF V600E mutation has a significant association with tumor recurrences in patients with papillary thyroid cancer (PTC), reducing survival rate from 98% to 40%. Patients treated with BRAF V600E inhibitors, such as vemurafenib, acquire resistance to the drug over time (6 months) and tumor cells metastasize to distant organs, leading to patient death. Within the … [Read more…]

Beginning with ancient Rome, domes became the design that opened up buildings, creating vast interior space. However, this was an engineering challenge and innovation for the time. Taking the traditional flat roofs of the Classical period and forming a hemisphere high off the ground, made of heavy concrete that is supported only by material below … [Read more…]

During the summer of 2015, I worked alongside Art History Professor Ellen Hoobler on a project that involved looking at artifacts from ancient Mexican tombs in new ways by incorporating 3D digital modeling and 3D printing. We were able to measure, photograph, and video record a tomb and the remains of the structure on top … [Read more…]

During World War I, various aspects of German culture in the United States were suppressed or put under great strain. Sauerkraut became “Liberty Cabbage,” Dachshunds became “Liberty Hounds,” and German measles became “Liberty Measles.” Orchestras stopped playing works by Beethoven and Mozart and, in an ironic case of foreshadowing, books written by German authors were … [Read more…]

Paleoclimatology is the study of past climates through the use of climate proxies, geologic or biologic records that preserve evidence of temperature or precipitation prior to those periods recorded by humans. Stalagmites, mineral deposits formed from dripwater on the floor of caves, are useful as paleoclimate proxies for two reasons. First, they can be precisely … [Read more…]